I interpret this title in the narrower sense; that is to say, to mean the limitations of the statistics relating to the financing of urban buildings rather than the limitations of all building statistics expressed in financial terms as distinct from physical quantities. My remarks will be of a very elementary nature; it is scarcely an exaggeration to say that we have no data sufficiently reliable or complete or available over a sufficient period to provide a time series which would justify the application of refined statistical technique. The inadequacy and unreliability of the statistics in this field are justly matters of great regret. The market for building capital is a highly complicated and comparatively unorganized one-rather it is a congeries of different markets of highly varying degrees of organization. Yet, if a measure of control is to be effected over the construction industry in order to forestall the extremes of over-building with their calamitous consequences with which we are now all too familiar, such control must be largely exercised through this capital market-through the institutions which provide the funds upon which the industry depends. If such control is to be exercised, tools are necessary, and tools of a reasonable degree of precision. Specifically, we need first to know the total draft which the building industry is making upon the country's capital markets, the total amount of mortgage credit outstanding at any time and the total volume of such credit granted during each year. If comprehensive figures were available, we would probably be amazed at the magnitude of these totals, just as we would be amazed at correct figures for our aggregate annual construction activity, which our inadequate statistics have led us persistently to underestimate, in my opinion, by as much as several billion dollars. In the second place, we need to have these aggregate figures broken down into their constituent parts -that is, we need to classify mortgage loans by purpose of issue and by the class of structure which provides the mortgage security. Preferably, we should have this information on a monthly basis. Only thus can we recognize developing situations, trace unsound trends to their causes and arrange to apply appropriate controls. Finally, we ought to know the prices at which demand and supply in the various branches of the building capital market are being equated, changing trends in the nature and form of the capital instruments which are being employed, and all possible data in regard to foreclosures of properties, defaults on mortgages, failures of financing institutions and other financial involvements which indicate the development of unsound situations or